People Alerted About Lottery Scam Abusing RBI’s Name

The RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has alerted people that an e-mail scam pertaining to an alleged lottery is circulating across the Internet. Timesofindia.indiatimes.com published this on July 31, 2009.

Describing the method of the scam's operation, the RBI said that a person gets an e-mail informing him that he has won a lottery prize whose amount the RBI has kept in the banking regulator's account.

More specifically, the current scam names a person as having won a lottery amounting to millions of dollars that is kept in an account at the bank while the catch is in asking the winner towards depositing a certain amount of cash into an account with the bank as necessary for administrative as also other expenses towards handing over the prize.

Further to give the scam e-mail a legitimate and authentic appearance, the fraudsters, according to RBI, have forged RBI certificates containing the name, official position and signature of some officers belonging to the apex bank.

Thus on July 30, 2009, RBI informed the general public that there was no account with the bank in any company's, trust's or individual's name in India that contained funds for allocation. Further, it had no system for an individual to set up an account with the central bank for depositing money into it. Simultaneously, RBI never issued any advice, confirmation or certificate giving indication of holding or receiving any money into such kinds of accounts, the bank notified.

Besides, RBI indicated that as per the Foreign Exchange Management Act there was no permission for anyone to remit money in connection with lottery programs. That is, the RBI considered lottery as an act of scamming therefore any person getting an e-mail presenting lottery from the RBI must immediately notify it to the authorities.

Meanwhile, a highly placed RBI official said that several complaints had come to the bank which was now trying to locate the scammers with the help of the police. Alljunks.blogspot.com reported this on August 3, 2009.

Moreover, the RBI has posted its alert for the people about the ongoing fraud, in thirteen languages on www.rbi.org.in its official site.